After finally finding my way out of the snowdrifts and to the keyboard, I’m back to offer a few frostbite-influenced thoughts on the latest happenings:
It’s amazing how much has changed in ten years. When the Patriots won the Super Bowl in February of 2005, there was no Twitter, no Facebook, no Instagram. There was no FOX Sports 1 or NBC Sports Network. We had ESPN and a young NFL Network to get the recaps, and reviews from. Locally we had WEEI and whatever minor league competitor was on the air at the time.
The growth of social networks as well as increased competition on the television and radio side, both locally and nationally has led to a constant saturation of highlights, views, reviews and punditry.
The difference between 2005 and 2015 is amazing, and for me, its another reason I’m glad the Patriots were able to get that Super Bowl win in this new era – in many ways we got to experience it in a whole new way.
But, it’s already onto next season, as we talk combine and franchise tags.
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Can the Red Sox do another worst-to-first turnaround? Amazingly so, it seems that it’s not only possible, but many of the analysts out there are picking them to come out of somewhat weakened AL East. They’re also popular in Vegas and even in the UK where it looks like a tightly-contested season ahead with the Nationals and the Dodgers leading the MLB baseball betting markets at a price 13/2 respectively, with the Tigers next in-line at 7/1 from UK bookies Betbright.
Ben Cherington, after seemingly not doing too much in the aftermath of the surprise 2013 World Series win got back on the horse this offseason and signing free agent bats and trading for starting pitching, while missing out on bringing back Jon Lester.
While there are still many questions around the team – young players, lack of an “ace”, the closing situation – the Red Sox figure to be much more competitive this season. Spring Training coverage should be announced shortly for NESN and CSNNE, and for once perhaps, the green fields and reporters having faux debates poolside at a Florida resort might actually be a welcome sight for the rest of us.
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The NBA trade deadline is this week. Coach Brad Stevens has said he’d like to keep the group he has now somewhat intact so that they can develop some cohesion. That is completely understandable from a coaches perspective, but I suspect if Danny Ainge can get more assets for his rebuild, he’s going to make deals. It still doesn’t look like it’s time to begin adding the “keeper” pieces, but we’ve been surprised before.
This team has been pretty fun to watch in recent games, especially their west coast swing, and that game against the East leading Hawks. While wins might not be the best thing for draft pick positioning at this point, they’re nice to be able to enjoy.
Congratulations to CSNNE’s Tom Heinsohn who will be inducted into the basketball Hall of Fame for his coaching career with the Celtics. Already in the Hall for this playing career, Tommy should be also considered for the broadcasting wing as well.
Younger viewers might scoff at that notion, but Heinsohn pioneered much of how basketball is produced for television. He’s a lot more worthy than many of the names that have been honored by that wing of the Hall.
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Are these the 2015 Bruins or the 2009 Patriots? Is Claude Julien standing next to Zdeno Chara saying “I just can’t get this team to play the way it needs to play.”
A 4-3 OT loss to the Flames last night was the Bruins latest poor performance, and it sure looks like some major changes need to be made to this roster.
Boston Sports Media Watch 
The new “BallGhazi” story on espn . com covers all of the bases. This has now surpassed Oliver Stone’s JFK, for entertainment value.
Photo of the “suspect” and Brady in the same frame to accompany the article? check
The “suspect” has been “in charge” of the officials locker room throughout the post “Spygate” era, thus we can now denigrate the ENTIRE run of greatness and dominance under BB? check
The “suspect” is employed the Kraft Group? check
No mention of the NFL Network story that said 10 of 12 balls were a “tick under-inflated”, but does include mention of prior ESPN article that said “11 of 12” footballs were under-inflated by “one to two pounds”? check
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To me, the most interesting revelation in this latest leaked “story” is that Kensil, the ex-Jet employee with the massive axe to grind against BB and the Pats, is alleged in the article to have personally tested the PSI in the footballs. Huh? I thought that is the job of the game officials, not league officials. It’s akin to the Secretary of Defense personally leading an assault on a beach head rather than letting his generals in the field do it. If that doesn’t set off alarm bells about this Kensil guy, then I don’t know what will. Saw someone say on a message board last night that this latest leak is Goodell’s revenge for BB joking about this entire faux “scandal” on Letterman last week and treating it like the witch hunt it is. Given Goodell’s history, especially with regard to the Pats, it seems entirely plausible. In the end, however, this story came from ESPN and, therefore, should be treated as wholly illegitimate until proven otherwise. By the way, nice touch to “out” the part-time, $10 per hour locker room attendant, who now has his name and photo, and even his address, plastered all over the place. 99% of the media in this country is pure scum.
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After all the crap that ESPN has said over the past month does any of what they report now seem believable?
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Have to wonder if Kraft isn’t livid this morning.
They even authorized ESPN’s “OTL” folks to get this one, which is the only unit inside Bristol I’d ever even think about trusting.
I just read it and there’s a ton of questions, unfortunately that will not be asked by all the losers who made noise before (Doyle, Hubbarch, Florio, etc.) but this seems so random. Someone must be really pissed w/the NFL if they’re authorizing leaks to ESPN.
So balls went from underinflated to “unauthorized” now…
Hey, I’ll take deflategate/cheatgate talk over.. well lets be honest this is the worst time of the year? I’ve not cared about the Celtics, nor think I will for another few years. 4 hours of “blow it up Bruins” trade talk? No thanks. Lets talk about Sanovals expanded waistline?!
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I’m mentally hibernating until late Spring Training.
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Some media related thoughts now that the SB seems to have passed some:
– Say what you want about Andy Gresh (and I have said plenty over the years) I think he handled the ending of the Gresh and Zo show with about as much class and dignity as you can do. there did not appear to be bitterness (I have no idea if there is or isn’t). He did not take cheap shots at management. He thanked the callers and the people he worked with while past colleagues called in to wish him well. It was refreshingly optimistic and makes me want to see him get a job in Pittsburgh where I think he would do well.
– What makes better radio: 4 hours of Bruins blame pie talk or 4 hours of should the Celtics tank or not talk? And people wonder why I mock both sports, and the coverage of both on the local talk radio shows. If I was a purist about either sport I would be furious that this is the best either station can do covering these sports. As someone who does not care…this type of uninformed made up talk caused me to change the channel to something else entirely.
– Ben Volin interests me. He is another in a long line of Globies who cover the Patriots while injecting more opinion than fact into his beat writing. The funny thing is he comes across as less caustic and more informed when he does radio. Perhaps he has a problem with the nuance of language that we in NE use to communicate when he writes. For example he was on, I think, Felger and Mazz on (or who ever the fill-in was) on Monday and he was able to articulately explain that he has spoken to people in the Pats organization that think the Colts or someone in the Colts organization let some air out of that one football. He was far more clear discussing it than he has been in his writing when pointing out that observation was just that an observation of what some people in Foxboro think.
– I like the coverage of the truck leaving for spring training. Hope springs eternal. If you buy into the romantic notion of baseball as described by people like Malamud, Updike and Halberstram, like I do, then seeing the truck leave, when there is 8 feet of snow on the ground, should remind you that spring is not so far away and long (I mean really long with the pace of todays game) lazy summer nights of sitting on the back porch with the game playing in the background as you watch the sun set on Kelly Bay down at the Cape are not too far away. If you don’t appreciate the truck leaving then I am betting you are more a Sabrmetician than a Baseball fan.
– Lastly, Can’t tell much after a day but my first impression of the Betrand and Zolak show was that it seemed to be more focused, which I took as a positive. We will see how it evolves. I did not have the same visceral reaction to that show as I did to the Salk and Holley show or MFB.
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I LOVE truck day. I LOVED truck day before it became fashionable to LOVE truck day, back when I was walking to work, Yawkey Way was part of the route and there was no hoopla surrounding truck day. The hoopla has not ruined it for me, for all the reasons that you mentioned.
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It’s not “fashionable” to love this moronic day. 99% of the city and Sox fans think this is the stupidest thing of all time.
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99% of Sox fans? Doubtful. But feel free to replace “fashionable to LOVE truck day” with “before it became a media spectacle and something actually promoted by the Red Sox and MLB marketing departments”.
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Truck Day is the stupiest f*cking thing ever. You have to be certifiably insane to go watch a semi drive down the street. Explain to sane people how not liking a truck driving down Yawkey way questions someone’s baseball fanaticism. A couple guys load sunflower seeds and pine tar onto a tractor trailer and then…wait for it….they get in and drive to Florida!!! OMG!!! How awesome is that?! Wasn’t that exciting when they took that box of baseballs into the trailer? It wasn’t? Well screw you! You’re obviously not Red Sox fan!
By your logic there are only about 30 “real” Red Sox fans in the city then.
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no by my logic there are 30 romantic baseball fans left… and you may be right… but to me the symbolism of truck day and all the hope it brings that it is a new year for the sox, that spring is just around the corner and that baseball is back is worth saluting the truck as it drives off to Florida. As George Will so brilliantly observed “you watch football but you take in a baseball game”… watching the truck depart is the first moment you get to take in for the new season and all the hope it brings.
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I think the recognition of truck day and the disdain for the recognition of it are equally annoying.
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Oh boy:
http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/12340408/new-england-patriots-employee-gave-unapproved-ball-official-lines-reports
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“Great response by Michael Hurley (CBS Boston)”
Excellent commentary from Hurley.
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The narrative of DeflateGate changes by the hour. I think there’s been like 11 people “blamed for this” and about 20 different scenarios of how this might have happened. As El Pres said on Barstool “It’s like a little kid who is caught in a lie. You just keep making up different stories and blaming different people until something sticks”
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My thoughts on this crap
This latest crap just shows the lack of leadership in the nfl office. To many leaks and no official announcements.
Who knows who the sources are, maybe the cleaning lady or the janitor could be the deep throats in all of this crap
It’s time of Goodell to get his severance package and his minions must go…
Kraft and the other owners need to clean house at the nfl offices and put in people with personality.
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